101 athletes awarded BOC scholarship

The Sports and Olympic Committee of Macau, China (SOCMC) held the Award Giving Ceremony of the 2016-2017 BOC (Bank of China) Scholarship for Outstanding Athletes in Macau at the Macau Tower Convention & Entertainment Center.

The scholarships were awarded to 101 outstanding athletes from 14 sports associations in Macau.

The athletes awarded finished in the first three places at various large- scale sports contests, including the World and Asian Games, and the World and Asian Youth Games.

During the ceremony, Ho Hau-Wah, honorary president of SOCMC, along with Li Guang, general director of BOC Macau, Ma Iao-Hang, president of the SOCMC, and Lo Keng Chio, chairman of SOCMC, presented a total of MOP878,000 in prizes to the athletes’ representatives.

Established in 2014, in partnership with Bank of China, this is the fourth edition of the scholarship.

The scholarships were set up to cultivate local talents within the SAR government, aiming to award those outstanding individual athletes or teams who have placed either first, second or third in 16 sports games, including; the World and Asian Games, the World and Asian Youth Games, the Asian Youth Athletic Championships, the East Asian Games and the Lusophony Games, and the Paralympic Games and non-Paralympic Games series.

In the first edition of the award, 152 athletes were awarded. The second edition awarded 83 athletes from 11 Macau sports associations, with a total of MOP1,520,500 in prizes.

Last year, 145 athletes from eight local associations were awarded more than one million patacas.

Ma Iao-Hang hopes that the awarded athletes will improve their performances and set a good example for all of Macau’s athletes. Ma further hopes that his association can keep working with the SAR government and with BOC in order to push more organizations and associations to work together towards Macau’s sports development.  JZ